Highsnobiety brought our attention to a 2002 interview with Supreme's James Jebbia through the help of Gary Warnett, who dug up the chat on an old, defunct blog called Rift Trooper. That's enough degrees of separation to make Kevin Bacon proud, but we're here now so let's fucking get it. Supreme's reseller culture is more than strong. It's completely insatiable and unending. And while today's fans hate it, Supreme was still a reseller's wet dream back in more than a decade ago. Jebbia's thoughts on the secondary market feel like they could have been spoken yesterday:
I don't like it very much simply because we try our best to make our clothing affordable for young people, after all Supreme is a skate brand & when I do see our things on eBay the prices are normally at least double what they should be. Basically I don¹t like people getting jacked for a T-shirt. I much prefer if someone buys something from us that they plan on wearing it & not selling.
Even now, as prices have risen over the years, Supreme is still for the most part a very affordable brand, but Jebbia, the man responsible for one of the most hyped brands of all time, clearly isn't a fan of the fervor surrounding Supreme's secondary market. Considering that resellers are still a huge component of the brand's story and that they haven't done much to deter the actions on their end, he must have come to terms with the game. I guess that's what millions of dollars will do.
